Biggest Loser...

Time for big changes. The weight battle continues. I am so done and sick of it. Over our Paakkonen Christmas celebration last weekend, a few cousins and I were talking about it. We are all in the same boat. All of us have lost some and put it back on, lost some, put it on, and so on. We all decided to do our own version of Biggest Loser. We each will put in $25.00 and the person with the biggest percentage of weight loss by April 3 will win the pot. The amount will be almost 200 bucks!! We have created a private group on Facebook and have all posted our starting weight. This was EXTREMELY tough for me to do because I have never told anyone my true weight; outside of doc offices of course. The act of telling, no, scratch that, POSTING this number to 8 other people was actually really freeing. I just laid it all out there. No going back now!! :) The feeling that everyone is in the same boat was a relief as well. Yes, we are competing but we are also very supportive to one another on the group board. That support and validation helps!!

I have re-signed up for Weight Watchers, which I absolutely love and forgot I did. The premise of the program, for those of your who are not familiar, is you get points to start with in the week (mine are 27), you get extra weekly points (mine are 49) to use on anything extra throughout the week. THEN, you get more points called Activity points when you exercise. Which you choose to use on food or drinks. The way the points are calculated are based on fat grams, protein grams, carbs and fiber. You plug those into the calculator online or the handheld one you can buy for 7.50 and alacazam you get a point value. You learn rather quickly what each foods are what value and what are the low point items to keep near you. There are so many zero point foods such as most veggies and fruits! It's exciting as I love both of those. Today, my lunch consisted of 2 cups of lettuce, an orange bell pepper, strawberries, grapes, dried cranberries and a little bit of dressing. My total was: 3 points. That is a lot of food! I was able to eat some WW friendly chips for a grand total of 6 points for my entire lunch. One half hour on the elliptical will wipe away that entire lunch. What happens then?! Hello, weight loss! See? No brainer. It's all a balancing act!

I'm looking forward to it! I have extra motivation to lose...this is the dress I am wearing on Feb 25th to Jamie's work party. We also we are going to Vegas March 1-4...MORE motivation.